Labour Standards Should Not Be Negotiated In WTO

Some developed countries advocates frequently that labour standards should be negotiated in WTO, some even suggest that every country should adopt a social clause: an agreement of a series of international labour standards. But developing countries strongly disagree such suggestion.In developed countries' view, product from developing countries is cheaper than that of developed countries because of low labour standards in developing countires instead of relative cost advantage. So, it could help to create a fair environment of international trade if labour standards could be negotiated in WTO and then embodied in multinational trade agreements. This could also help to improve the right of workers, such as work hours, working surrounding and so on, in both developed countries and developing countries. While developing countries believe that their low-level social and economic statement leads to low labour cost advantage, meanwhile, if labour standards is negotiated in WTO, it could be used as trade protectionism by developed countries.Under this background, this paper firstly make a simple introduction for international labour standards and core labour standards, and then make a review for its history and development. Then analyze why labour standards should not be negotiated in WTO. For theroical analysis, firstly I make a conclusion and then a simple comment of relative research; and for practical analysis, I analyze the reason that developed countries and international labour organization's advocation for negotiating labour standards in WTO, and then focus on the conclusion of this paper: labour standards should not be negotiated in WTO. Firstly the reasons that labours standards should not be connected with international trade, secondly the fact that developed contries could not reach their aims with the present means of labour standards implement; meanwhile, the fact that what developing countries disagree is not labour standards but the fact that developed countries would use labour standards as a tool to protect their domestic industries. Finally I make a simple analysis of the right way to improve labour standards.The innovation of this paper is analyze the conclusion based on a series of case, and, the conclusion of this paper is: labour standards should not be negotiated under WTO and reach an agreement. Developing countries, especially China, should have the right attitude and countermeasure on it.